Category: Living in Society

On Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, State Representative Amy Nielsen and Solon Mayor Dan O’Neil hosted a town hall meeting attended by 17 local residents at the Solon Public Library. There was a lively discussion.

Overshadowing the town hall was the fact Republican lawmaker Martin Graber of Fort Madison died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 72. The Gazette story quoted House Speaker House Pat Grassley, “Our caucus is devastated by the unexpected passing of our friend and colleague Martin Graber.” “Our caucus” and no one else? A Democrat at the town hall suggested the obvious: there will be a special election to fill his seat. Let’s give partisanship a rest until the human is buried or cremated before thinking about politics. May Graber rest in peace.

Mayor O’Neil went first. The biggest project the City of Solon is planning is a new wastewater treatment facility. In part, the current one, built in the 1960s, needs updating. The population has grown considerably since the original plant and the city needs expanded capacity. They are one year into a five-year project.

The mayor also suggested the city welcomes increased tax revenue from recent growth. It leaves a little breathing space in the budget, he said. He also discussed the non-partisan nature of city council and would like to keep it that way. We all know he is a Democrat, yet the work is more positive when politics is left outside. He also talked about getting more representation on the county board of supervisors. The legislature is talking about “rural representation” again this year.

State Senator Dawn Driscoll introduced Senate Study Bill 1018 in the Iowa Senate, related to county supervisors and “rural representation.” She explained in her newsletter:

At the forefront of my week was Senate Study Bill (SSB) 1018, which is a bill I filed and am particularly passionate about. This bill requires county supervisors be elected from single-member, equal-population districts in counties with populations of 125,000 or more (or are home to one of Iowa’s public universities). This bill also requires these same counties to fill vacancies on their board of supervisors by special election, while all other counties must fill the vacancy by appointment. SSB 1018 gives a voice to the people of Iowa, especially those in rural communities whose voices can be overpowered by massive amounts of student populations. Given that I live in rural Iowa myself, I recognize the importance of rural representation. Our votes and our voices matter, and I believe SSB 1018 captures exactly this sentiment. The bill advanced through Tuesday’s subcommittee and the Local Government Committee meeting

I pointed out at the town hall that a lot depends upon how the maps dividing our county into districts were drawn. County Auditor Julie Persons was present and said depending on how the legislation is written, and whether it passes, her office would draw a district map and forward it to the Secretary of State for approval. In an Iowa State University study conducted after the 2020 U.S. Census, researchers found 83.3 percent of Johnson County is urban and 16.7 percent is rural. It’s hard to see how a single rural-dominant district could be drawn without extreme gerrymandering.

I want the freedom to vote for the best candidates for all five supervisor seats as the current at-large elections enable. The only Republican elected to the board of supervisors since we moved here in 1993 was John Etheridge. Republicans won by getting out the vote in the entire county in a low turnout election. There’s another reason to favor the at-large system. It elected the first Republican supervisor in many years. It seems like the bill will move this year, even though in our county, it would lock in urban rule by Democrats by district.

Rep. Nielsen covered many topics, including private school vouchers, home schooling, changes in special education, school lunch programs, and the higher education committee. There were questions about water quality, discrimination against LGBTQIA individuals, cancer, and nicotine use and control.

I raised two issues I would like to gain more attention.

Public discussion of contracted administration of Medicaid has gone silent in the state. Is it still costing us too much money? Is the current administrator going to endure? Are we going to require grandma to get a job while enroute to the nursing home? It was a good discussion that ended with my suggestion Rep. Nielsen address it in her legislative newsletter.

I also asked what the legislature was doing to address the statewide shortage of physicians, especially in specialties such as vascular surgery. This topic has not gained traction among Republican lawmakers whose past tendency has been to lower standards rather than incentivize qualified surgeons to move to Iowa.

Rep. Nielsen wears a white hat and even though she doesn’t represent my district, she has been very supportive of everyone in the county. It was a good night in Solon.

Conservatives are complaining the pace of cabinet confirmations is too slow, with only three confirmed as of this writing: Secretary of State, CIA Director and Defense Secretary. They whine that W. had seven confirmed on inauguration day and Obama had six. Maybe if they were better organized and had better nominees for these important positions the pace would pick up. Not holding my breath on the administration getting better organized. It is what it is and Republicans in government and without are just going to have to live with the goat screw they created.

On the sixth day of the Trump administration, the debris has not settled from his initial actions as president. He’s just getting started as policy explosions continue to go off. It is too early for an assessment. My wait and see attitude persisted through the distasteful destruction of systems we once viewed as normal. That is, we viewed them as normal seven days ago.

I’m not ready for hot takes from pundits and calls to action from people who favor a pet project or cause. At six days in, the action continues hot and heavy and none of us who favor a better society can afford to be distracted. This is exacerbated by the off the cuff speaking manner 47 uses intentionally. In Fletcher, N.C. on Friday he said that he was considering “getting rid of” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, offering the latest sign of how he is weighing sweeping changes to the nation’s central organization for responding to disasters, according to PBS. It is time to keep our powder dry while the president sorts out his ideas.

Some things stand out to me.

• PEPFAR (The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), one of the few successes of the George W. Bush administration, has been paused. The program is credited with saving more than 25 million lives.
• Last night, 47 fired at least 15 Inspectors General, a violation of federal law, which requires Congress to receive 30 days’ notice of any intent to fire a Senate-confirmed inspector general. It is like the fox watching the hen house, only worse.
• Confirmation of FOX television personality Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense is an affront to every active duty service person and to veterans. Is this the best leadership Republicans can offer?
• The mass roundup and deportation of undocumented immigrants fumbled out of the gate. There are some actions, notably in New Jersey, but mass deportation it is not. Someone in the county seat sent around photos of a couple of ICE-marked vehicles at a local convenience store. An attorney in Des Moines reported ICE apprehending some clients. The administration could possibly ramp up from this week, yet for all the hubbub about it, not much is happening. It didn’t happen on Day One as predicted by Republicans.
• The pauses at NIH, CDC and other public health-related agencies were unconscionable. In Iowa alone NIH spends $209 million, supporting 2,579 jobs at multiple locations. You can’t just “pause” science and expect useful results.

Looking forward to what week two will bring. I expect it will be more of the same distasteful, poorly conceived, and in some cases illegal activities. It doesn’t help that this was anticipated.

The new president took the oath of office Monday and I tuned in for some of the ceremony. Minnesota U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar gave an excellent speech. Not so much Mr. Trump. Several prominent people, including historians who would know, rated it the worst speech in the history of inaugural addresses. I turned it off and went trail walking just as he approached the podium. I hope Klobuchar is planning to run for president again.

We will all have to deal with the reality of the new administration. The day after the inauguration, it is hard to say what exactly that reality is. The president is trying his best to make us believe in an alternative reality. If we resist nothing else, we should resist that.

From the noise of yesterday came the quiet of today. Like many, I’m using this quiet to understand where I might help get the United States back on track. I expect it will be an inter-generational effort. So forget about resolving things with a blue wave election in 2026. It is time to reduce our screen time and get to work.

I’m participating in the Meta blackout that runs until this weekend. With each day I am becoming more confident I can deactivate my Facebook, Instagram and Threads accounts. I will see how that shakes out yet less screen time will hopefully equal more writing of my own.

I don’t have anything profound to say about this week’s events. There is no shortage of punditry making points of analysis. I know when to keep it short. Let’s have a cup of coffee on this new day. Cheers!

I looked at the thermometer and it was 8 degrees Fahrenheit outdoors. I put on my cap, scarf, and coat and left for a walk along the state park trail. It was a brisk walk in that I wanted to keep my heartbeat elevated. I was stunned by the news. Leonard Peltier is freed.

I got teary-eyed as I read the White House Press Release that in one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier. This has been a long time coming. I have been in favor of freeing Peltier since I can remember, including in the 1970s when I served in the U.S. Army overseas when he was sentenced.

Hawaii Senator Brian Schatz had been posting on social media about granting clemency to Peltier since the election. I don’t know how Washington works, yet I believe his advocacy made the difference. It certainly wasn’t my message to the White House, the last of several I sent.

We will miss Joe Biden more than we know.

Since the Trump administration will immediately take down the Biden administration website, I screen-shot the text below. The archived website is expected to return, yet who knows when that will be?

I didn’t campaign for Joe Biden when he came to Iowa to meet us in 1988, 2008, or 2020. I lived in Indiana in 1988 and found better choices the other two years in Iowa. He did poorly each cycle, barely registering on the scoreboard in 2020. That year he went on to be elected president and served faithfully and with dignity the four years ending today. As the Irish might say, Slán leat, Joe Biden. You served us well and we’ll be missing you as we cope with tomorrow.

If the Iowa Democratic caucuses said anything about U.S. presidential elections, it was never about us, it was about all of us. Joe Biden was a president for us all, and I’m thankful for that.

When I took this photo, Democrats had reached the high point in an arc that began after the turn to this century. We experienced grueling defeats in 2010. Barack Obama and Joe Biden swam against the Republican tide as Newt Gingrich and his allies tainted American politics, launching an enduring era of brutal partisan warfare. Let’s hope the next four years don’t make it worse.

What I admire about Biden is that after the death of his son Beau, he did not follow Obama into presidential politics. PBS reported in October 2015, “The vice president’s 46-year-old son, Beau, died of brain cancer in May, and Biden stated publicly over the summer that he did not know if he could emotionally commit himself to a run for office.” It was his turn to run, but family matters more to this son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, so he stepped back. He lived to regret that decision, yet he persisted over time and made us proud.

Slán leat, Joe Biden. We already miss you.

The outside ambient temperature was 54 degrees Fahrenheit as I drove to the county seat for provisions. That was exceedingly warm for mid-January. Because of King’s Birthday on Monday, my Social Security check came early and I had money to buy groceries. I’m still not used to being tied to a monthly pension payment. It is better than the alternatives.

The incoming administration moved Monday’s inaugural ceremony indoors because of a D.C. forecast of ambient temperatures in the 20s. I am quick with snarky comments like “How is the administration that can’t stand the cold going to take over Canada or Greenland?” While some Canadians I follow were rolling on the floor laughing about this, I think something else is at work.

If Trump is anything, he is a master of messaging and communications. Holding his swearing in and speech indoors provides a kind of messaging control that if it were outdoors, would be less possible. The guest list will be smaller inside the capitol. I can imagine the countless media comments about the size of the inaugural crowd if held outdoors. While crabby people wearing MAGA hats have already been in video clips on social media, saying they could have just stayed home and watched on T.V., you’ll have that and Trump must know it. In any case, I don’t plan to watch the speech live, although I will likely read the text next week. I don’t know many people excited about the prospect of another four years of him.

The good news about the first week of the legislature is both my House and Senate representatives issued a newsletter. Hard to say how often they will publish, but it is something positive. I don’t expect a lot of positive things from the legislature this session. The Republicans have super-majorities, and are in a position to pass anything they want. I expect they will. The challenge is to find things I can support and encourage my elected officials to support them. A sense of doom hangs over our district.

I can’t help but think of the excitement and hope that surrounded Barack Obama’s inauguration 16 years ago. There is a clear sense that the gains we made as a society since FDR are coming to an end. We worked to elect a better person as president and we lost the election. What else can we do but go on living?